Posts Tagged ‘travel toiletries’

I realized tonight when I wrapped up with my last client that I only have one client left to see before I go to Paris.

Paris seems far away and a touch surreal at the moment.

I have been so busy walking through this housing situation that I have spent little to no time thinking about Paris.

Cue standing in the dental aisle at Walgreens this afternoon when I went in to fill a prescription.

Why am I standing in front of the toothpaste?

I have toothpaste at home.

I don’t need toothpaste.

But I kept coming back.

Until I remembered.

Oh snap!

I need travel size toothpaste!

I’m traveling soon.

I leave in three days!

It just has not really landed at all.

I am, of course, very much looking forward to seeing my dear friend.

I miss her so much and it was hard to finish my last semester of school without her.

Friends are so damn important.

It will be good to reconnect, to have lots of time with her, and of course, to have the best and most brilliant of insider guides to the city that I love only second to San Francisco.

I am always so happy that I get to live here.

Yesterday I went and visited a friend who used to live in the city but has done what so many of my friends have done, moved out of the city across the Bay.

She lives high up in the Berkeley Hills and it was a beautiful home and a lovely, stunning really, view of the city, the bay, the fog pushing over Twin Peaks, but I could not imagine living there.

I love San Francisco.

Sure.

It’s changed, but everything changes.

And it’s still, to me, one of the most beautiful places in the world, especially to live.

I also ran an errand and took back a bicycle rack that a friend had loaned me last year for Burning Man.

That took me to Alameda.

Where I did see a few cute houses, but it felt so suburban and removed and I also could not see myself there.

Or in Oakland.

Or in Berkeley.

I see myself in San Francisco.

My focus on finding a place is focused on the city proper.

And let me tell you.

I have been looking.

I have seen a few things, but not much.

I have responded to a few things, but gotten no response.

I do feel like when the dust is settled here and all the paperwork signed and taken care of that I will be throwing all my might behind finding a new place.

I will also officially throw it up on social media and I’m quite hopeful that I will find a good place.

I have been quietly telling a few friends and starting to put the word out.

The fact is though, at this point, it’s so close to me leaving for Paris that I really should skip even looking, I don’t know that I could do anything or get anything together before I leave.

I think it’s time I get excited!

I think it’s time to contemplate what I am going to be doing, walking around in the best city to walk, seeing art, street art and art, art.

Getting to spend time shopping in the Marais at all the little paper shops for notebooks to smuggle home with me.

Gah.

I bought a book today to read on the plane and I couldn’t help myself, I bought a new notebook too.

It was too cool to pass up and I knew I must have it.

There was a little voice in my head saying don’t accrue any more stuff! I need to get ready to move and the less to pack, the better.

But.

Well.

I couldn’t help it, I bought the notebook.

And I did some writing siting in a cafe waiting for my friend and her new baby to come and join me.

I don’t often sit in cafes in San Francisco and write anymore.

I do the majority of my writing here where I am sitting right now, at a tiny table in my tiny kitchen, heaped high with notebooks and folders and books.

God.

I love paper.

I love writing.

I wrote a love letter in the new notebook.

I think that’s why I decided I had to buy it.

It is perfect for writing love letters.

And it was.

After my friend left I had some down time to sit for a while before I headed into my internship.

To sit outside, in the warm late afternoon sun, with a bottle of sparkling water, at a park in the Mission on Valencia Street that I used to bring former charges too and write a love letter while looking up at the bright blue sky, well, it was something else.

So no regrets about buying the notebook.

It will be used.

I will also buy more when I am in Paris.

Along with my standard pair of earrings, lipstick/lip gloss or eyeshadow, postcards, museum magnets and whatever else small momento I feel I should need.

I am so looking forward to seeing Paris through my friends eyes that I will have to buy something outside of my normal repertoire of souvenirs.

I thought about perhaps buying a market basket, I do love how they look.

And.

Yes.

I have contemplated a new tattoo.

I have one in mind, I will see if it stands the test of time when I arrive.

There’s a shop in the Marais that I get my work done at and I’ll see if they have an opening when my friend is off to a wedding out-of-town one of the weekends I am there, get myself a souvenir that I can wear always.

I like that quite a bit.

Of course.

I will take lots and lots and lots of photos too.

I promise.

Psst.

Here are a few from my recent trip to New York.

Back yard patio at a lovely little restaurant in Williamsburg, The Rabbit Hole, where I had the most amazing soup and salad–broccoli cheese consume and the salad was like a deconstructed BLT with avocado and fried leeks.

So good.

Bunny rabbit lamps!

From Le Grand Strip, on Grand Ave in Williamsburg.

I swear to God I almost bought them, but not knowing where I am going to live stopped me. Once I’m settled I may actually buy them, the owner said she could ship them for me.

One this morning before heading out the door to do the deal with my person up at Tart to Tart in the Inner Sunset.

The other.

About an hour ago.

I cannot believe it.

I am finished with the semester.

And.

Free to move about the country.

Or.

The world.

As the case may be.

And the case, my suitcase, is packed.

All is good.

All is ready.

My passport in my wallet, my bags packed, my toiletries in the little clear plastic flight bag–the same one I bought at Sephora a little over three years ago when I decided to move to Paris.

I am a little incredulous how much stuff I got into my carry on.

My friend reports that he is a clothes horse, ah, yeah, and has to check a bag.

Bahahaha.

Yeah.

I don’t travel like that.

In fact.

I was feeling that my second carry on was too big and bulky and I said, fuck it, I’m just going to carry my suitcase and my purse.

I figure that’s enough.

I have enough.

I am enough.

I reiterated to myself as I went about my day getting ready to do all the things that needed to be done.

Methodical, with a little bit of anxiety about getting it all in, but a surety that it would be done.

That no matter what I would have it done.

Maybe I wouldn’t get as much sleep as I wanted.

But.

My brain, the inflater of all things bad, never the good, always the bad, which should be a tip off, told me quite bold and loud that I would not have enough time to do my final psychodynamics paper and I should just put it off until I got back from Paris.

I was like.

Are you serious.

Oh.

Fuck.

You are!

Well.

That’s an option.

I told my brain and then just started doing all the things that needed to be done.

I had some housekeeping, some emails, and some laundry to do this morning, plus the general housekeeping of my brain and the sweeping out of my heart any cobwebs from the night before.

I put fresh sheets and pillowcases on the bed.

I love to come home to a freshly made bed.

Such a small kindness to do for myself.

I am always grateful for my fresh made bed after a bit of travel.

Then, the breakfast, the coffee, the writing.

I gathered up my things and got my scooter ready.

Grateful for a break in the rain so that I could ride to 7th and Irving.

I parked and went to Tart to Tart.

I did some reading, some checking in, some inventory, some down loading of my previous week.

I got a lovely birthday card from my person and loads of perspective.

We talked about attraction rather than promotion.

And.

Paris.

She lived there once as well.

It was grand to compare notes.

Then she went her way and I made a few phone calls and posted a travel alert on my ATM card so that there would be no holds on it when I travel.

I went to the hardware store and bought a small padlock for my scooter basket.

I went to do the deal at 1p.m.

Then.

A late lunch at La Honda Mexican grill.

Just because I don’t eat flour doesn’t mean I can’t get my Mexican food on–a nice plate of carnitas, beans and rice, and a very happy and full lady went off to the nail salon.

A mani/pedi and eyebrow wax later.

I left the Inner Sunset after a brief freak out where I thought I had lost the keys to my scooter.

A totally odd.

(Is it odd or is it God?)

And very surreal experience that I will share with you privately should you really want to know, but suffice to say, it was beyond bizarre where my keys showed up.

I did find them.

I figured that twenty minutes was a moment of total surrender and that they would show up when I was supposed to be on my scooter riding it home.

Which is what happened.

But.

I have to say it was such a spooky little experience that I decided to take the park home instead of Lincoln–it’s a much slower speed limit and much less traffic–and just get off the scooter and park it and lock it and cover it up.

I won’t be riding it for a week.

At least.

I got home and talked to my crazy brain about how to tackle the rest of the day.

I did a little grocery shopping.

I pulled out my carry on.

I made dinner.

And I put up a bunch of food into the freezer so I won’t have to cook when I get back from the trip. I will have food prepped and ready to just pull out of the freezer and take to work.

Then I took out the notebook and the reader and I opened my laptop.

My brain clamored pretty loud.

Just put off the damn paper, you don’t know what you’re going to write about.

And.

I didn’t.

Even though.

It turns out.

I did know.

I somehow always do.

That’s the miracle of it.

The words are there.

It’s the sitting down and the opening up of myself to what is happening.

And voila!

Less than an hour and a half later I had the paper written.

And may I say.

It was a good paper.

A really good paper.

I was happily surprise.

I wrote well, I understood what I was writing on and I am also aware that I learned while I was writing the paper, which is always the main deal for me.

In the experience of doing the final paper, I learned more.

This is a mark of a good teacher for me and also that I am a good student.

“You are an amazing student,” she said to me, after I had described a paper I had written for another class and the response to it.

“You are an academic, you may really want to think about going for the PhD.”